First, I would like to wish all my Canadian friends a happy Thanksgiving weekend! To all my American amigos, happy Columbus Day weekend!

One thing you must know about me is I constantly struggle with wanting to improve my work. “Isn’t that a good thing?” you might ask. Usually, yes. But you need to draw the line somewhere. If I had the time and the means, I would be publishing a new edition for every novel I have ever written on a yearly basis because there would always be a better word or a bit to add to a scene. Every time I read one of my works, I want to improve it the slightest little bit. But novels are like children. When they have reached maturity, you need to let them go and wish for the best. No one likes a nagging parent telling their adult children how they should run their lives.

For the past few days, however, I have indulged my longings and gone ahead with making a few changes. This time, it has to do with this blog.

During the past month since Marc Labelle – Author of Knightfall‘s inception, I have been taking a closer look at other blogs. I have seen little additions to their sites I wanted to see here, but was unable to incorporate them. For some reasons unknown to me, WordPress.com doesn’t allow its users to add plug-ins to their blogs. I was disappointed to learn this. So I am now doing something about it (nothing too drastic, mind you).

WordPress.com’s sister site, WordPress.org does allow us to use these plug-ins. All one has to do is download the program and then upload it to your own website. The program is still free and I already had my own website, so the transition is a painless one for me. And I get to do a few more things than I could before!

I ask all of you to make the transition with me. No, I’m not asking you to switch platforms as I did. What I would like is for all of you following this blog to keep doing so on the new site. I will continue to endeavor to entertain and enlighten you as I have in the past. Like every business that relocates, the content remains the same (or hopefully improves), just delivered from a different location. For those bloggers I have been following, you will be getting a new follower in the near future as I subscribe to your updates from the new site.

This will be the last entry posted here. I have already transferred everything to our new home (including all the wonderful comments). All new material will appear at:

I received an inbox message on my Facebook author page today from a fellow author who has graciously offered to review Knightfall. I don’t know exactly where he is in the book, but he wanted to share an opinion:

“You have created some truly deplorable antagonists…well-played!”

My friend, if you only knew the depths I could delve into. I wrote Knightfall to be accessible to preteens, so what you read was a toned-down version of what I could have written. To tell the truth, even if the novel was for adults only, I still wouldn’t have gone into much more detail (or depravity). I didn’t feel it was necessary. I’m glad to hear the finished product still had the desired effect, for every author strives to have her/his readers feel something for her/his characters.

But this inbox message brought me back to another character I created, who was much more despised than any who appear in my novel. And by “despised” I mean the other fictional characters hated him. The readers absolutely adored him! I had many members of that particular society tell me how much they loved his rants and his fury-induced rampages. They would visit the site on a daily basis to see what he would come up with next.

I would like to share a bit about this character, if I may.

In my previous post, The First Step Is Actually The Easiest, I mentioned I was part of something called an “e-federation”. To be more specific, it was a wrestling e-federation called Supreme Championship Wrestling. I wish I could add a link here, but the site no longer exists. The federation has been defunct since December 2008. A former member had started to create a page on a Wikia site, for any who are interested.

Let me explain what was entailed in this online society. A member created an online persona in the form of a wrestler. One could add a manager or sidekick if one wished, but the wrestler was to be the main focus. The federation would broadcast an event every week, much like professional wrestling you see on television. In the SCW, we did something most other e-fed didn’t. As well as posting taunts and mini-segments on a message board all week long, we were required to submit a short story. The members were the ones to write how the matches progressed and who would come out on top. The combatants facing each other sent in their stories, which were judged by a panel. The submission that was deemed the most interesting, while furthering a storyline, would then be posted on the event. This happened week in and week out (for the most part, if real life was nice enough not to interfere).

Shan Toril

My main character (I had two during my tenure there, plus a manager, and I helped with another when his handler was too busy) was a brute named Shan Toril. He would run at the mouth and insult every other character in the federation. These rants, or “blargs” as another member dubbed them, were what everyone enjoyed. Shan would never call his opponents by name. He would always come up with a derogatory twist to their name and use that when referring to them. He was also prone to promise everyone he would shove his fist down their throats. He was an all around mean guy.

And I backed that up with brutal match submissions. Some of the things I came up with belonged in horror films, not professional wrestling. But the other members enjoyed these sadistic fantasies of mine. We all wish we could smack others who irritate us. We just don’t do it because we are either nice people, or we simply don’t want to spend any time in jail.

I also used this angry persona to vent my frustrations. Not literally, of course. I don’t believe in broadcasting all my woes on the World Wide Web. I simply took all my pent up aggression and let Shan Toril release it in a physically safe way. When I couldn’t swear at a fellow employee for not doing their job right and making my job that much harder, I sent Shan to slam a steel chair across another wrestler’s back. When I couldn’t slap a customer upside the head for being an idiot and wasting more of my time than was necessary, I let Shan insult his opponent between punches. When I was actually having a good day, I had Shan choke his opponent until he was about to pass out before slamming him to the mat (just because it was expected of him).

The only way to really appreciate what I mean is to actually read what one of these matches. I have found one and have posted it in the Writing section of this blog. Feel free to mosey on over and enjoy (or click here).

This federation was a huge help to me. I was part of it for many years, wrote many matches, interviews, segments and appearances. Authors who studied English during their post-secondary education no doubt had many assignments to hand in. My SCW submissions were my essays and exams.

I had to incorporate many differing characters in my submissions, staying true to the persona the other members had created. If you couldn’t portray your opponent as she/he was meant to be seen, your story was usually not picked. So I learned how to convey many personalities, which helps greatly when you have a cast of characters you need to make real for your readers.

Your writing also had to be interesting and action-packed, since they were fight scenes for the most part. Some of SCW’s members were atrocious writers, but they won their matches because they were a much better read than their opponent’s once you got past all the glaring errors.

You’ll also notice in the example I provided we used comedy once in awhile. It was usually done with the commentators, but there was a wrestler called Mad Cloon who was all about comedy–and inflicting pain. I enjoy interacting with him immensely.

I treasure my time spent with Supreme Championship Wrestling. Though it was meant as an entertainment venture, I used it to better myself as an author. I also appreciate the fact it permitted me to use it like a therapist, without charging me a cent!

Anybody else out there have an unconventional way they learned their craft?

I don’t know how many of the younger generation have heard of the three R’s, but most of us over the age of thirty have, I’m sure. They, of course, refer to the most important things one must grasp during their years of schooling: Reading, wRiting, and ‘Rithmatic.

I have already touched a bit about writing in previous posts and will continue to do so in the future. I still have much to say on the subject, as do many others if my ventures through the blogging world are any indication. But for this post, I think we should concentrate on another R.

Of course, I’m talking about ‘Rithmatic. I can just see a few of you tilting your head to the side and raising an eyebrow. “Is he serious?”, you must be asking yourself. The answer is: no. Though I wish most of the teens out there would learn to at least add and subtract without the aid of a calculator, it has nothing to do with writing. Unless you count the extra time it takes at a checkout line because the clerk can’t figure out how much change to give you, time you could have spent in front of your computer chipping away at your masterpiece.

Today’s post concentrates on Reading. I haven’t heard of an author who doesn’t read. Reading and writing go hand in hand. You can’t be passionate about one without feeling the same about the other. It would be like having a doctor who wants nothing to do with anatomy–it just doesn’t work.

“But Marc, there are a lot of celebrities out there who have written a book and don’t read because they don’t have time with their busy lives and all!”, some of you might say. I can easily explain that apparent paradox. Most celebrities don’t write their books. Don’t get fooled by the name on the cover. The celeb no doubt came up with the book’s content, but it was a ghostwriter who actually put the words together. And chances are pretty good that ghostwriter reads as much as he writes, just like the rest of us.

Reading has many benefits for any aspiring writer, no matter what field of work he or she wishes to jump into. You get to see words in action. You get to see how sentences are supposed to be structured and how they flow from one to the other. You get to see words you hadn’t seen before and see how they are used.

It doesn’t matter what you read, either. Textbooks give you technical insight into various subjects. I personally find them tedious, but they are out there for a reason. Thankfully, as an author, these kinds of books won’t really help me, so I can skip them without any ill effects. Newspapers give you insight on the world around you, but again, I avoid those. I get tired of hearing all the bad news happening around the world. If only good news would sell papers just as well, then maybe I would start reading them. Magazines concentrate on sex or health, it seems nowadays, so I leave them on their shelves also. But that’s because I’m lazy and my wife absorbs all the sex tips, so if I want to know anything, I just have to ask her. That leaves books, and those I read in abundance. I have my preferred genres and topics, as does everyone, but that still leaves me a myriad of options.

My first advice on what to read will always be something you will enjoy. Never sacrifice enjoyment. If you do, you will find your mind wandering more than you would like and you will find yourself learning less than you should. And believe me, even if it feels you’re not learning anything while immersed in your text, you actually are. As you enjoy the words, your mind will remember the sentence structures, the uses of conjectures and all those other things teachers drill into you in English classes. And it’s a lot more enjoyable to learn these lessons this way.

Secondly, for those who want to read with the aim to help learn how to write, choose something that resembles your aspirations. Aspiring journalists should read newspapers to see how facts should be relayed. Non-fiction authors should peruse books in their chosen fields. Fiction authors should read books in their preferred genre. And, of course, authors and editors of textbooks should delve into those ponderous volumes.

The more you read, the more you’ll learn. You may not notice it, but other will when you just so happen to know the definition of a certain word without having to look it up in the dictionary (because you had previously done it when you first encountered the word). You will eventually put a complex sentence together, correctly following all the grammatical rules, without even knowing what those rules are.

Trust me when I tell you this: reading makes better writers. My post-secondary education was in the electronics field. I never took a university course in English. I wish I had, but I found out I could live without them. I’m sure they would have helped me, but I’m not going to dwell on that. When I got the revised copy of Knightfall after its first round of professional editing, I was quite pleased with the number of changes the editor was suggesting I make. There was a lot less red than I had expected, and almost half of these had to do with the use of punctuation. I had expected the manuscript to be covered with missing commas and semi-colons on every page, but it was nowhere near that bad. And it was all due to the fact I read a lot throughout my life.

Go out there and read something. When you’re done that, read something else. But don’t forget to keep writing as you do so.

I would like to touch on an issue that has recently come up in my efforts to promote my novel Knightfall. It doesn’t have anything to do with the actual promotion of the book, but with the branding of me, the author. I’m sure most other authors, especially those of the indie persuasion, have come across this situation. I’m also sure some would disagree with what I’m about to say and they can feel free to leave a comment. But since this is my blog, I get to go first.

I am a member of various groups on various social media platforms. One particular group on a particular site (I won’t get more specific than that since those details are irrelevant and would be more destructive than necessary) offers its members the opportunity to share their Twitter handles and extends an open invitation for new followers. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to spread my name around the Web and hopefully reach more potential readers and fans.

Here’s the issue that has popped up and now disturbs me.

One group member voiced his dismay about the followers he was not receiving. He was dutifully going through the posts and following all the members that had given their handle. I’m the type of person who gives others the benefit of the doubt until they prove to me they don’t deserve it, so I will assume he was truthful in the comments he recently posted. Even if he is not, I’m sure someone else feels as he claims and I would still be irked at the situation. Those recent comments of his were about his annoyance at the fact all those people he was following were not following back. He has now decided to not follow anyone until after they follow him.

What the hell?

I’m sorry, buddy, but I won’t be forced to follow someone I’m not interested in. I’m on Twitter hoping to connect with readers that like fantasy novels. That’s what I write. I may branch out into other closely related speculative fiction genres, so I’ll also want to reach those fans as well. But what good will it to do me to clutter my list of followers with DIY landscapers who only read historical romances? (This is not this particular disgruntled author’s niche, if you’re planning on trying to figure out who he is. I don’t mean to bash him on a personal level. I don’t know him and have no problem with him. My problem is with the attitude he displayed and views already displayed by others.) What good will it do you to have hundreds or thousands of followers if none of them will ever consider buying your books? All you’ll get is a flood of tweets you’ll never read. Worse than that, said flood will inundate your feed and you won’t even see the posts you really want to read.

So, my friend, please tell me what your goal is. Do you want to reach a thousand followers on Twitter, or do you want to sell a thousand book? I wish for the latter. I write because I have stories to tell and wish to share them with the world. I wish to entertain them with a good read, not mere sentences every other day about how things are going in my life. For that reason, I am one of those people that is currently annoying you. I will not follow you just because you ask me to. I will follow you if we have something in common or you have something to say I find interesting and think others in my circle will enjoy reading. But I will not waste my time with those that will only hinder my progress. It’s all good to have thousands of followers, but they don’t mean much if their interests are all over the place, everywhere except your particular niche in the literary world. Just being an author is not enough, in my books. A self-help guru specializing in nutrition is worlds apart from a novelist who writes about a mass murderer terrorizing a steam-punk infused dimension still in its prehistoric era.

I’m sure most of your mothers have told you something along these lines: “If all your friends jump off the bridge doesn’t mean you have to jump off too.” Following just for the sake of following doesn’t help in this case. In fact, all it will do is hinder you in your efforts to promote yourself. Of course, this is the opinion of an author just starting out. But it still makes sense to me, so I’ll keep doing it until proven otherwise.

Any professionals out there willing to share their insights? Any amateurs who want to add their two cents? Please feel free.

All right, I’m sure we all get the concept of writers needing to write to get better (as stated in my previous post). But it’s really hard to start typing or scribbling if we have no idea where to begin or where to go once we actually find a couple words to jot down. Where is a writer supposed to get his or her inspiration?

I sometimes envy journalists and ghostwriters. They have an editor or a boss telling them what needs to be written. Their topics are handed to them and then they’re sent off packing. Ghostwriters get even more help–sometimes an entire plot is given to them. All they need to do is flesh out the “skeleton”.

My envy is always short-lived, however, because I know I couldn’t handle either situation.

Firstly, I detest research, so journalism was always out of the question for me. This is the main reason I write fantasy. I get to create the world of my stories from top to bottom. I don’t need to know proper police procedure when a civilian calls in the discovery of a dead body. My crimes happen in realms I invent, so the characters follow the rules I come up with. I also don’t need to read up on airline protocols (since I haven’t had the pleasure of flying, as of yet). I can magic my mages to whatever place I wish and don’t have to explain how they got there. It’s simply magic.

Secondly, I’m a pantser, not a plotter. If you don’t know what that is, there’s an excellent post on Fantasy Fiction’s blog that explains it quite nicely. You can find it here: Writer’s Den: Plotters vs. Pantsers | Fantasy Faction. But I’ll give you the gist of it. Plotters plot their story from start to finish. They figure out first how everything will happen, then they write. Pantsers write “by the seat of their pants”. They write and let the story go where it wants to go. The rigid structure of an outline you’re not allowed to deviate from infuriates me, because I always find myself coming up with different options that make the story that much better. Ghostwriters need to be plotters or they would soon find themselves without any clients.

But I’m getting off topic here. I’ll touch on the Plotters vs. Pantsers choice in a later post. I’ve actually tried both styles and feel like sharing.

Today, we’re talking about finding what to write. One question you should never ask an author is: “Where do you find your ideas?”. The answer is usually “I don’t know”. You might as well ask them where their dreams come from, or what their thought process is when they cringe after suddenly noticing something flying at their face. Of course, I’m sure there are some that actually can answer that question. They might have had quite a brainstorming session to find their topic, weighing every possibility and likely outcome. But these people are no doubt plotters, so I can’t speak for them.

Personally, my ideas just come to me. They just pop in my head at unexpected moments. And if you’re unprepared, you’re most likely to forget them. For a time, I carried a small voice recorder with me everywhere I went. When something hit me, I would take it out of my pocket and leave myself a message so I could write it down later. I felt stupid talking to myself in public, so I switch to an old fashioned notepad that a friend had given to me for Christmas. Now I use an app on my smart phone. It’s much less bulky and I always have it on me. Having something that allows you to jot down notes with you at all times means you’ll always be prepared to capture those elusive ideas.

Something to keep in mind when deciding on a long writing project is passion. It’s always easier to write about something you love, whether it be an activity or a memory. Just remember how tedious it was writing those essays in high school. Now forget how discouraging that was. You can now decide to write about something interesting. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re the only one that feels as passionate as you do on the subject you choose. There are always others out there that will feel as you do. And readers can tell when an author was truly dedicated to their work. It shows with every paragraph written and the excitement is often conveyed to the reader.

So find something that interests you, something you love, and you’ll find the words pouring out of your fingers in no time.

In my first post I said this blog would be dedicated to writing. Now that you know a little about me, let’s get started with the important stuff. But before we do that, I need to remind everyone of one thing:

I AM NOT AN EXPERT!!!

I have zero degrees in any of the fields related to the English language

I have never held a position at any sort of establishment related to the publishing industry

I haven’t spent years at the same job to gain recognition from my peers, enough to warrant them wanting my insights in writing

I’m sure some of you are now wondering why you should keep reading this. Why should you continue wasting your time on someone who can clearly give you no new insight? The answer is quite simply: you don’t have to. I’m not trying to impress anyone here. I won’t pretend to be more than I am. I am simply a man who had an idea and ran with it. I had a story to tell, one I wished to share with the world. It just so happens most that read it enjoyed it immensely. So I must have done something right. You don’t need a bunch of credentials to make it as a novelist. That is a belief I hold on to, even if fame and fortune and I haven’t met yet. But that little “set back” doesn’t change this basic fact. All you need is an affinity for the English language. And even if you don’t have that there are ways around it.

The first thing an aspiring author must do is write. It doesn’t matter if they want to be a blogger, a poet, a novelist, a journalist, a screenwriter, or whatever else their hearts desire. The basics are all the same, no matter what the context or genre your writing will fall into. In order to improve your writing, one must write. It doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you do it.

Just like in sports, you need to start small and gradually build up to the level you wish to achieve. I don’t think there is a novelist out there that hasn’t written something a lot smaller before they attempted their grand opus. When I was younger, the usual medium was a personal journal, painstakingly written with archaic devices called pen and paper. I’m sure every adult remembers sitting in English class, forced to put down their thoughts on a daily or weekly basis.

Nowadays, I see the younger generation eager to share every thought and feeling. With the emergence of social networking and blogging, there are a lot of people broadcasting how good or bad their day is going, how their romantic relationship is faring, how much they want their friends to come join them in playing some addictive game. Though I feel this sharing of every single mundane minute of one’s day is excessive and unnecessary, I can’t deny the benefits. Firstly, he or she is constantly improving his or her typing skill. That will make it easier for the fingers to keep up with the racing ideas we authors usually have to contend with. Secondly, he or she must work to convey to others what he or she is feeling. A rant is quite disappointing if no one can tell just how pissed off you really are.

Okay, I’m sure a lot of you are shaking your heads right now. I know you are all thinking of those incoherent posts filled with spelling errors and absolutely no attempt at grammatical accuracy. And we can’t forget all the acronyms being used to make things easier for those not willing to make the effort anymore (lol, omg, ttyl, rofl, tmi…). I have seen them too and shake my head in dismay every time I try to decipher their messages. I can usually make them out, but it just adds more effort on my part I would rather avoid.

So, for the purpose of this post, I’ll be ignoring this vast majority of today’s youth. They won’t be the ones with aspirations to write the next New York Times Bestseller. And if they are, they can keep texting their friends in whatever fashion they like, but I strongly recommend the long-hand form of writing in their more serious endeavors. The more you use real words, the easier they will come to you when you need them.

Start with journal entries, poems, lyrics, whatever you feel like writing. Feel free to rant as you would on Facebook, but try to elaborate so it’s more than one sentence. It might even be therapeutic. Before and while I was writing Knightfall, I actually did this very thing. I was part of something called an e-federation. I had a weekly deadline to submit short stories, as well as a number of forum posts. I was getting a lot of writing done and it helped me quite a bit with character and plot development. But this story will have to wait for another post.

The bottom line is: you must write to be a writer. As the title plainly states, it’s that easy. Don’t worry how coherent your thoughts are, that’s not what you need to focus on at this point. Just get the feel of putting words together. You’ll tackle making everything make sense later. That’s exactly how all the professionals work, no matter now many credentials they have or how long they have been putting words on paper or on screens (so I have read). Focus on quantity at this point, not quality. Trust me, the more you strive to put sentences together, the easier it will become.

When I’m reading articles and such, this is usually a question I ask myself after I’m done reading the piece. And I only do that if that particular piece spoke to me. But in this case, since I plan on writing for awhile, I better get this out of the way or you may never get to know who I am.

Of course, I’m not going to start from the beginning and innumerate every single event in my life. Even though I’m still young (unless you’re talking to a teen, than I would be ancient), I could post something on a daily basis for the rest of the year before getting to the start of my writing career. And I promised you in my opening post that this blog would mostly relate to writing.

So let’s forgo all the interesting anecdotes of my youth and get right down to business. Who is Marc Labelle, author?

Well, I’m a guy who hates to repeat himself, especially in print. Having to type things twice is quite tedious, I find. I can barely get through the first edit session of my work, and when writing Knightfall I combed through the manuscript three times before sending it to a professional editor. Then I went through it a fourth time to weigh the editor’s suggested changes. For this reason, I’m just going to cut and paste the bio I have included on my website www.marclabelle.com.

If you were expecting to read about how I received a couple degrees in Literature or English, I’m sorry to disappoint. I am simply a man who has stories to tell and seem to have a knack for the English language.

My first urge to sit before a computer and type a few words came at the age of seventeen. The first scene of Knightfall came grudgingly slow, all for naught. It had been written on my dad’s computer and the floppy disc remained behind when I moved back with my mother. All I remember of that first attempt was that it was nothing like how the novel now starts.

To tell you the truth, I had doubts about my talent at that time. That changed a year and a half later when I took that Grade 12 Creative Writing class. An above-average grade and praise from the teacher once a month or so really boosts a young author’s confidence. I also found out that year I might actually be able to sit down and accomplish the daunting task of getting a long story on paper. We were given an assignment that was to be at least 5000 words long. I topped 13000 and had to end the story too abruptly for my liking due to a fast approaching deadline.

So why didn’t I go to university and get those degrees in Literature or English, you might ask? I just wanted to write, not spend all my time learning all the tedious rules. But most of all, I had a stronger penchant for numbers and computers. So my post-secondary education was wasted elsewhere. I say wasted because nothing came of it. But I’m sure you want to learn how my first novel came to be.

In 2005, I left my menial job to become a stay-at-home dad. I also took the opportunity to get that story that had popped in my head when I was seventeen onto paper. Thirteen months later, the first draft of Knightfall was written. Now the hard part was to begin: the editing and the publishing.

I tried the traditional route of getting an agent to find a publisher. A budding agency in New York did take me on, but when the year-long contract lapsed my manuscript was still in my hands instead of on the printing presses. So, in May of 2008, I decided to publish the book myself. All I wanted was to see my work in print, for my friends and family to have a physical copy of my work to enjoy as much as I did. I found a Print-On-Demand company online who would bind the book for me and those who came to me wanting a copy.

A year later, I received an e-mail from that agency that had not been able to help previously. They made up for it by introducing me to Strategic Book Group (now Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency), even though they no longer had any obligations to me. They offered me a larger network of potential buyers and more services to make the book even better. I jumped at the chance. Those pesky errors I noticed after the first publication of Knightfall were corrected and a cover that was more to my liking was created. That story that entered my mind back in 1992 has finally come to fruition.

So what does the future hold? Hopefully many more stories to entertain the masses.

And there you have it, that’s me in a nutshell, as far as my writing career goes. Well, this is just a summary, of course. There are a few more little details I failed to mention, but all my website needed was an overview. I might come back and fill in these gaps, you know, if ever I run out of topics for future posts.

Of course, I’m always open to answering questions. Feel free to ask away. I’m pretty open about almost anything. Just don’t ask me to air out my friends’ and family’s dirty laundry–they can do that themselves.